Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A leadership crisis in the Nix community

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 286 posts

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#151

Post by msgilligan »

saulrh wrote: post #123
ordinaryradical wrote: post #23

Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…

It's like he didn't even read the letter. It's fact after fact, sourced and linked and screenshotted, demonstrating that Dolstra, the Foundation, and Anduril are engaged in toxic leadership that are concretely limiting the Nix Project's ability to build good software. It's not even about Anduril's business, it's about how they're at the center of a web of conflicts of interest that are producing poor software enginee…

When the whole first paragraph is about how it's not about ideology, it's about ideology.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#152

Post by colinsane »

pantsforbirds wrote: post #121
cosmic_quanta wrote: post #40

> Anduril, a military contractor that uses NixOS, has repeatedly attempted to become a sponsor of NixCon, which did not go over well with the community Something similar happened in the Haskell community, where some people called for Anduril job postings to be removed. Nix is a software project, not a social movement. The goals of Nix are entirely separate from how the software is used. I really like Coinbase's state…

It's wild to see how much hate Anduril gets from the same people who have statements supporting Ukraine in their READMEs or have licenses preventing Russians from using their software. How can you demand support for Ukraine, but then get upset by the people who are meeting actual needs for the war effort?

hey you know i think cops aren't all bad, but when they knock on my door i still don't invite them in.

Anduril exists to protect the order. same as cops, only focused externally instead of domestically. but in a global project where people collaborate with each other as individuals, it's all the same. don't talk to the cops: you only stand to lose.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#153

Post by retool »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #95
retool wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that the boards composition for engineering and technological organizations or projects should be chosen based on the results of measuring skulls, genetics or what partners they openly prefer for sexual intercourse, that seems unrelated to the work. The slander against the board is quite obvious and I believe you're being disingenuous.

I was being sincere. I think it's reasonable to expect a governing board to be at least partially representative of the users & contributors of the project. It seems extremely presumptuous at best to tell people their lives & experiences are not relevant to the work they do, and that they are wrong to want people with similar experiences acting in leadership. So no, I still can't see slander. What is obvious to you i…

I understand your position, but I respectfully disagree. Selecting leadership based on immutable characteristics like race, gender or sexuality rather than merit and contributions is misguided and prejudiced, even if motivated by a desire for representation.

The current leaders' "lives & experiences" very much inform their work - their experience contributing to and building the project. What's irrelevant and presumptuous is assuming their race, gender, etc. make them unfit or that "people with similar experiences" (i.e. the same demographics) would necessarily lead better. The slander is in attacking and attempting to de-legitimize the board not based on their actions or competence, but on their identities. That's textbook ad hominem.

Inclusion means welcoming people of all backgrounds, not enforcing demographic quotas or judging people's fitness based on identity rather than ability. If you have substantive concerns about board decisions or project direction, by all means raise them. But leave identity politics out of it and focus on the issues. Presuming leaders can't serve the community well because of innate traits is its own form of prejudice.

The only real criticism of concern was the military contracts and a conflict of interest, which I believe is valid and needs discussion, the rest just seems like personal attacks meant to further some unrelated agenda.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#154

Post by Macha »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #15
aredox wrote: post #9

The main reason for the persistence of Nix despite its warts and general mess is just "first-mover advantage": it was the first, therefore it has more libraries/packages/development of the ecosystem than the alternatives. Stop being lazy, go back to engineering first principles and it makes little sense to stay with Nix. Guix or any rewrite as a library in a well-developed language* makes more sense. *For example, wh…

Cabal has had nix-style local builds since 2016: https://blog.ezyang.com/2016/05/announcing-cabal-new-build-n... https://cabal.readthedocs.io/en/2.0/nix-local-build-overview... Also cabal isn't positioned to be a system level package manager. Haskell programmers are the type to want both their application builds and system dependencies to be reproducible and predictable. > Stop being lazy, go back to engineering firs…

You'll also need to deal with project philosophy regarding closed source packages to get Guix as streamlined as Nix.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#155

Post by ParetoOptimal »

powera wrote: post #77
ParetoOptimal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bridging Stallman's article to the issue at hand of sponsorship, I find it hard to believe that because he's fine with say Oracle using his code that he would also be fine with giving them a platform as a sponsor. I don't actually know his position on this, but mean to communicate I see the use of free software and the sponsorship issue as separate issues.

You've already commented ten times in this thread. If you don't know, maybe don't say anything?

Do you know if Stallman would platform Oracle by allowing them to be a sponsor?

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#156

Post by Macha »

dwb wrote: post #114
marginalia_nu wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on how these things have historically tuned out, yes. This is very problematic. The root of the problem is that it is basically impossible to defend yourself against the accusation that you are secretly a fascist. If you say yes, you admit to being a fascist, if you say no, you're a lying fascist. If you question why the accusation is levied against someone else, you're defending a fascist, if you speak out aga…

I don't get how this follows; no-one needs to be a secret anything, and the aim isn't even personal. Targeting "ideas rooted in fascism and bigotry" means to oppose the discursive ideas and concepts as they are put forth in the community, and the resulting concrete actions, that come from fascism and bigotry – specifically not the people or private thoughts.

eelco here is not accused of behaving in a facist or bigoted manner though. The accusation is two steps away already, specifically not being sufficiently supportive of the means of a process which has prevention of facist or bigoted behaviour as one of its goals.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#157

Post by haswell »

colinsane wrote: post #130
cosmic_quanta wrote: post #40

> Anduril, a military contractor that uses NixOS, has repeatedly attempted to become a sponsor of NixCon, which did not go over well with the community Something similar happened in the Haskell community, where some people called for Anduril job postings to be removed. Nix is a software project, not a social movement. The goals of Nix are entirely separate from how the software is used. I really like Coinbase's state…

> Nix is a software project, not a social movement. everyone loves to assert that Nix is this or that. whatever label you fight to place it under, it's a product of some thousands of people. whatever it actually is, it's underpinned by something social.

Every human endeavor is underpinned by something social.

I think it's appropriate to separate concerns and use categorizations to help us separate ideological goals from practical reality. Paper is also used to fight wars, as are a myriad of other goods and services that exist in a more or less neutral space.

There's an important and very large conversation to be had about what we do and don't think is acceptable use of technology and general goods/services, but issues like the Nix meltdown seem like misapplied frustration at how resources are allocated (to buying things used for war) and an attempt to solve that allocation problem by cutting off supply instead of addressing the allocation of funds at the root.

Clearly some people think this is a good tactic, but I question both the effectiveness and the net good of such a tactic when the slope required to implement said tactic is indeed a slippery one.

I would prefer that code I write is never used for purposes I believe to be harmful. But this is fundamentally incompatible with the OSS model.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#158

Post by takeda »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #20
Laaas wrote: post #11

I think it’s important to make clear that the letter is mostly bogus and almost libelous. Check into any one claim, and you’ll find it’s not the entire story. This however is true: > The Foundation board has unrepresentative composition relative to the community because, due to our count, all current members are cisgender, white-passing, men, one of whom has done military service, and one other (Eelco) likely relies…

> I think it’s important to make clear that the letter is mostly bogus and almost libelous. That's not my reading of it. However my biggest issue is the conflict of interest between Eelco -> DetSys -> Anduril Contract -> Eelco fighting hard for Nix to sponsor Anduril. As foundation chair he should declare that he doesn't have a conflict of interest and DetSys doesn't have a contract with Anduril or have recused himse…

The whole idea behind Open Source is that one does not discriminate.

As a Nix user I feel like those people who started this whole drama are actually negative to this project. They are trying to use Nix as a tool for their political goals.

I think the best for Nix would be to just move forward and ignore them.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#159

Post by pantsforbirds »

freedomben wrote: post #146
pantsforbirds wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the inspiration for this comes from Bibles? It's a common practice to have direct quotes from Jesus in red.

I had the same thought! I dismissed it though as perhaps coincidence because anyone used to reading a "red text" bible may find it offensive or at least distasteful to equate other people's words with Jesus. I could very well be overthinking that though and/or be projecting my own religious upbringing (where blasphemy and sacrilegiosity are very sensitive and highly frowned upon. Even saying "he" instead of "He" is l…

It is a very practical way to show someone is being quoted though.

Re: A leadership crisis in the Nix community

#160

Post by dwb »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #145
dwb wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get how this follows; no-one needs to be a secret anything, and the aim isn't even personal. Targeting "ideas rooted in fascism and bigotry" means to oppose the discursive ideas and concepts as they are put forth in the community, and the resulting concrete actions, that come from fascism and bigotry – specifically not the people or private thoughts.

Even if you deal just with ideas and somehow separate them from the people who promote them, what mechanism do you propose to use to decide whether an idea is rooted in bigotry or fascism? The accusation is incredibly nebulous and can be used to derail almost any proposal. For the sake of argument, let's say I put forward the charge that the policy itself is rooted in bigotry. Can you prove that it is not?

Of course not, but asking for a "proof" for a question like that is a category error. It will be decided by whatever the group decision process is, which would have to be present for all the other non-trivial, and yes, fuzzy things that have to be decided, both technical and social.
Post reply on HN